Development hell

Development hell is media-industry jargon for a film, television screenplay or computer game (or sometimes just a concept or idea) getting stuck in development and never going into production. The film industry buys rights to many popular novels, but it may take years for them to make it to the theater, and there may be considerable changes if in fact they do ever become movies.

In the case of a film or television screenplay, the screenwriter may have successfully sold a screenplay to a certain set of producers or studio executives, but then new executives can be assigned to the project, and these new executives may raise objections to all the scripts and casting decisions they oversee, mandating rewrites and recasting. As a director and actors become "attached" to the project, further rewrites and recasting may be done in order to accommodate the needs of the new talents involved in the project. Should the project fail to meet their needs, they might leave the project or simply refuse to complete it, causing further rewrites and recasting.

Worse still is when a finished project (for example, a television pilot) is sent back for rewrites and recasting, which can often force a project to begin again from scratch.

This process can last for months or years, and a project trapped in this state will more often than not be abandoned by all interested parties or cancelled outright. Hollywood starts ten times as many projects as are released, so many scripts will, of necessity, languish. Many times, this "Hell" occurs simply due to the lack of foresight and competing visions of those parties involved. This revolving door in the film industry happens most commonly with projects that, to some, may have multiple interpretations and affect several points of view.

Films

Chicago

Originally slated to go into production in the early 1980s, and to star Frank Sinatra, Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli, the film never got past the development stage due to the death of director Bob Fosse. After a successful stage revival, Miramax attempted to produce a film version starring Madonna and Goldie Hawn. Filming was repeatedly delayed over troubles involving developing a suitable script, hiring a director and casting issues, with actresses like Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Rosie O'Donnell signing on to the project, only to drop out shortly thereafter.

The project remained in development hell, with various names attached to the project until screenwriter Bill Condon and director Rob Marshall constructed a feasible story concept and found stars willing to remain committed to the project. Eventually, the film would be released in 2002, starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere and Queen Latifah. and would also garner six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 2002.

Dragon Ball Z

A live-action movie based on the smash hit anime. The movie was announced in 2002; it has been in development hell ever since. [1]

Dune

This film moved from potential director to potential director (amongst them Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ridley Scott) throughout the 1970s until David Lynch was placed in control of it. The film was eventually released in 1984, and re-made as a TV Miniseries in the late 1990s.[2]

Ender's Game

Plans for a movie based on Orson Scott Card's acclaimed science fiction novel have been floating around since 1996, when Card began working with Lynn Hendee and Robert Chartoff of Chartoff Productions to bring it to the screen. It was officially announced in 2002 that Warner Bros. had optioned both Ender's Game and its companion novel Ender's Shadow for a movie that would integrate the story lines of both books, with Hendee as lead producer and Wolfgang Peterson signed to direct. However, progress has stalled since then, as Card and the studio have struggled to create a satisfactory script. Several scriptwriters have come and gone, and as of March, 2006, Card himself was working on a brand new script not based on any previous drafts. Hendee and Peterson are still committed to the project, but there is still no known timetable for production.

Hannibal

Dino De Laurentiis spent $9 million for the screen rights to novelist Thomas Harris' sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, but the ending was considered "too grisly." During this film's development hell, playwright David Mamet and screenwriters Steve Zallian (Schindler's List) and Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs) worked on producing a satisfactory screenplay.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The film was in development hell from 1982 until it was finally green-lighted in 2003. Douglas Adams, the author of the novel and the screenplay, remarked, "Getting a movie made in Hollywood is like trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it." ^[3]

Metroid

A live-action movie version of Metroid was reportedly in development by Lion Rock Productions, based around Samus Aran, along with her early battles with the Metroids and the Mother Brain. It was scheduled to be released in theaters around 2006^[4], but no word has been heard on the title since.

A second attempt was supposedly being made by Hollywood director John Woo, though no recent news has been heard on that either.

The Phantom of the Opera

An Andrew Lloyd Webber musical to languish in years of development, production on the film began in the early 1990s, with original stage stars Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman. However, when Brightman and Lloyd Webber divorced, the project stalled. Various directors including Shekhar Kapur and stars such as John Travolta and Antonio Banderas came and went, before the film was finally produced in 2004 directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Emmy Rossum and Gerard Butler.

A Scanner Darkly

A film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly had been in development for years. According to the book Dark Knights & Holy Fools, director Terry Gilliam was interested in directing an adaptation of the book, but was unable to secure funding, and so the project was abandoned. At one point, Charlie Kaufman was tagged to adapt the screenplay, but when the project changed hands, Kaufman was no longer involved. In 2006, an animated version directed by Richard Linklater using the rotoscoping process was released.

Superman Returns

A remake/additional film of Superman, titled Superman Lives, was initially proposed by producer Jon Peters; it was to be directed by Tim Burton and would star Nicolas Cage. This project was ultimately canceled, though there are several known versions of the script that took on possible storylines, such as Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday and his resurrection, departing from the established mythology at varying degrees.

Director Kevin Smith is said to have written a script for this picture and in interviews has discussed several alleged elements of his involvement with the project including the producer's insistence that Superman could not fly. Wolfgang Petersen was attached to develop a joint Superman/Batman film, Batman vs. Superman, but this also fell through.

A second script by J.J. Abrams had various directors attached with Brett Ratner, and McG actually commissioning set designs. In 2004, it was announced that production would start on a new script with Bryan Singer as director; this version was released in 2006. It has been said by producers and director Bryan Singer that a 2009 sequel is going ahead.

Spawn 2

In 2001 on IGN, Michael Jai White had an interview about Spawn 2 and planned to be released any time soon. Then in an interview with Todd McFarlane, he said "Spawn 2 is not going to a super hero film like the first and we may not see Spawn in the film." Then in 2002 Columbia Pictures got the rights to distribute the second Spawn film. Then producer Don Murphy (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) confirmed the Scribe's involvement with the long-in-development sequel. In an interview with Comics2Film on IGN to plug the release of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, producer Don Murphy spilled the beans about a number of other comic book/genre projects he currently has in development. First, Murphy revealed that The Transformers has already caught the interest of four or five directors after the live-action adaptation of the popular cartoon and toy line was announced. Among those that Murphy cites as being contenders to helm Transformers are Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II), Oscar-winner Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future) and Joseph Kahn (the forthcoming Torque). Murphy is producing Transformers along with X-Men's Tom De Santo. Murphy was less optimistic, though, about the long-in-development Spawn 2 and Astro Boy, the latter's gestation Murphy calls "beyond frustrating." "First Sony was gonna make it live-action, then they didn't make it live-action because of A.I. Now they spent the last year and half trying to make it [CG] animated," Murphy said. "Of all the projects I have right now it's certainly the most frustrating. I can't tell you what's going on with it because I don't really understand what's going on with it at the moment. It was always Amy Pascal's favorite film. I happen to think whoever made that film would make a lot of money, it would be a big hit, and have a franchise. It's not even that hard. It's Pinocchio." Another Sony-based project of Murphy's is Spawn 2, which Hans Rodionoff has scripted. "Sam and Twitch are prominent characters," the producer revealed. "This movie is smaller and perhaps even cooler and scarier... We turned in the draft to Sony. Sony's a mess. I'm not sure where that stands at the moment. If Sony doesn't make it I'm sure that New Line would want their franchise back." Then in 2006 an interview with Todd McFarlane saying that Spawn 2 has been stuck in "development hell" due to Don Murphy being busy with other films. Todd McFarlane repeated plans for the Torso movie, the new Spawn animation, and the live-action Spawn film he plans to finance, write, produce and direct himself by the end of the year for less than $10 million. The film was inspired by Crash, which McFarlane says made a huge impact on him and shows you can make a successful film for less than $10 million. He is currently trying to get an R rating and a release for the film sometime in 2007.

Video games

Chronicles of Forensia I

The first entry of the RPG Maker 2003 series was started in 2006 yet still hasn't finished. Several script rewrites and such have forced the creators to continue working way past the original release date.

Chrono Break

The rumored third entry of the Chrono series (after Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross), "Chrono Break" was registered by Square Enix in 2001, but never officially announced for development. In 2003, the register was abandoned[5], though the Japanese "Chrono Brake" is still up[6].

Duke Nukem Forever

Main article: Duke Nukem Forever

Forever is the sequel to the 3D Realms first-person shooter Duke Nukem 3D on the PC, which was released in January 1996. Forever was announced in April 1997 and as of 2007 is currently still in development. The long development period has been put down to lack of manpower early in the project, game engine changes, content remakes and team members leaving during the development. As of 2006, 3D Realms has said they are firmly on track to getting the game into production. They have not set any firm release dates or released new media since 2001, when they stated that Forever would be released "when it's done." [7]

Elite 4

Elite 4 is a video game proposed by Frontier Developments, specifically by David Braben. It can also be written as Elite IV.

It will be a sequel to 1984's Elite, that Braben and his former associate, Ian Bell, wrote primarily for the BBC Micro. Two other sequels, Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters, were released in the 1990s, during which time Braben and Bell had an acrimonious falling out.

Features promised for Elite 4 include Newtonian gravity, realistic star systems and the ability to land on planets.

Elite 4 is considered by many to be Vaporware, meaning it looks unlikely that it will ever appear. It was first proposed back in 1998, and while many games these days can take several years to complete (for example, Frontier took five-and-a-half-years) there have been no formal previews, screenshots, press releases or progress reports released for Elite 4. A pair of character screenshots, technical background on a real-time animation system, and a brief discussion of its implications for character nuance, were included in an Edge magazine feature on animation circa 2000. Since then, the only details about the game provided by the developers are found in a brief FAQ on Frontier Development's site which does not appear to have been updated since 2001.

In September 2005, play.com had a pre-order form for Elite 4, listed as scheduled for release in September 2006. [8] However, Frontier Developments informed a fansite that play.com's release date was merely speculation on their behalf and that no release date had been formally given. [9] Elite fans have, at least, taken some joy that this incident and Frontier Development's response implies the game is still in serious production.

Jazz Jackrabbit 3

(also known as Jazz Jackrabbit 3D or Jazz3D because of its step forward from 2D to 3D-graphics) The awaited sequel for Epic Games' popular platform-shooter Jazz Jackrabbit 2 was developed by World Tree Games using the new Unreal Engine at that time around 1999. Epic Games tried hard to find publishers but failed, and in May 2000 the project was canceled. Since then the early alpha build of the game has been leaked onto the Internet. Furthermore an official FAQ has been published on the internet on the developers' behalf on Jazz2Online.com.

However, a potential revival of the game is under planning. Cliff Bleszinski has announced that he's still interested in offering the project for sponsoring by publishers. Although he doesn't want to reveal too many details about the game, he has announced a potential idea could be the hero Jazz Jackrabbit getting in trouble with the Turtle Mafia.

Prey

Main article: Prey (video game)

Prey has seen several attempts of complete rewrites starting in 1995, right after 3D Realms finished Rise of the Triad. The main developers always left for different reasons, with the self-made engines turning out to be troublesome [10]. The last incarnation by Human Head Studios with the licensed Doom 3 engine has been successful, releasing the game in 2006, eleven years later with positive reviews.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Main article: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was first announced in late 2001 and its original release date in 2003 was pushed back several times. It was released on March 2007.

Sonic X-treme

This game was to be Sonic's debut in 3-d; see main article.

"Team Fortress 2"

Team Fortress 2 has been in development since 1998 and is currently planned to release sometime in the second half of 2007.

See also

• Shelved
• Film production
• Vaporware